Nimrān

And on we travel, through a landscape created by fairytales, sculptured mountains, smooth granite cones, however not very photogenic due to a passing sandstorm.
A bit travel weary I looked for and found a spot well off the road where I could rest for a few days. Here I happened to met up with Jasmin, a German woman, who like me travels by herself with a dog. How’s that for a coincidence? We talked online before to discuss requirements to bring the dogs over the border and now she happened to pass along close by.
We got along well, the dogs got along well, so we decided to continue our journey together.
Of course both of us had car trouble, Jasmin of the electrical kind and Lola’s fuel tank made itself known again and started to dribble. So in the next bigger town we looked for some workshops to attend to our repairs. We found them quite quickly but making ourselves understood is always a different matter, but soon we were helped by the towns English teacher. My problem was quickly thought to be found, the screw on the diesel tank was loose (not tightened probably when the pertrol had to be emptied out of my diesel tank in Iran), Jasmin’s problems took some more doing. In the mean time lots of pictures of us women with dogs were taken by lots of men wearing their white thawb (tunic) and their white or red and white head dresses.
Once the cars were repaired Mofarreh, our English speading friend, invited us to his home.
This home is situated in a larger compound, that had several smaller houses on it, each house for a wife. Our friend had 2 wives, one of whom he had just recently divorced, and who did not live here any longer; and then there lived as well the 3 of 4 wives of his father who had passed away several years back. Each of the wives had several children between 38 and 7 years old; I forgot how many siblings Moffareh had, it was quite an impressive number. Not all lived here any longer as the married ones have moved out.
Unfortunately none of the women spoke English, so communication was rather difficult. Even made more difficult as the mothers could not read either, so google translate always had to wait until Sarah, Moffareh’s wife was in the room. But once we arrived Sarah commenced the cooking. Whilst she prepared the entre we were invited to have shower and some tea. Then at about 8pm the entre was served which consisted of the entrails of the lamb. Then we were lucky, or I at least was, Jasmin as a vegetarian did not consider herself that lucky to watch Sarah preparing the lamb. She put the whole the lamb less its entrails in one piece into a huge pot together with lots of spices and all we had to do now was to wait.
This was a traditional household which means men and women eat separately, normally the men first and the women get what’s left over. However today the women were quite excited; with the guests of honour being women, the women were to eat first and the men got what was left over!
Once the lamb and the rice were cooked it was all arranged on a huge plate, corpus, head and other things, we all arranged ourselves around the big plate and started picking the meat directly of the lamb. It was delicious. I find this eating with my fingers quite a sensual experience, even though I make quite a mess with the rice. It has to be squshed into a ball shape in the palm of your hand first and then pushed into the mouth with your thumb; this takes some practice and I don't manage this very well. But everybody is very forgiving have they all taught a lot of children how to eat.
It was very hard to convince the woman that Jasmin does eat absolutely no meat or anything that came in touch with meat, no rice with the meat juices poured over either. Poor Jasmin, it was quite a challenge for her to eat the rice that had seen some meat juices with the lamb’s head staring at her, but she bravely managed to empty her plate.
Once we were finished eating the leftovers were nicely arranged on a fresh plate and delivered to the men.
Of course, I was very interested to learn about the marriage arrangements. Unfortunately we only got the male version, due to communication restrictions.
Men can have up to 4 wives as long as they can provided for them. I of course wonder how the peace is being kept between all those wives. I imagine it as extremely difficult to put up with another woman sharing a man with me. The secret I am told is in treating all the women the same: the same amount of nights spent with every woman, same amount of money, same living standards. Simple! But what if you love one woman more than another? Simple too: this does not happen, you can love them all the same, but not fall in love with one. And when you don’t love one at all or she causes too much grieve, you can divorce her. Easy peasy! And can she initiate divorce as well? Apparently yes.
So now we know! I just wonder what is the female version. But somehow it seemed to be working, at least in this household on that evening: the father’s wives seemed to get along well with each other, had a lot to chat and giggle, so I guess this is a good sign?
And he is happy with his one wife? Yes he is, but he is looking for another wife nevertheless. But she asks him sometimes if he loves her, or will ever love her… Lovely, sweet Sarah!!Read more